The present invention relates to improved structures and means for the securement of strips of interengageable material to the surfaces of hollow balls for the purpose of preventing detachment of such strips.
Such balls are utilized in games wherein they are tossed or thrown to a target having or cooperating interengaging material surface to which they detachably adhere.
Balls partially covered with strips of interengageable material or Velcro material are known in the prior art for use in games for throwing at a fabric target to which the balls adhere upon contact. Such interengageable materials are well-known, and are known as burr materials involving a face or pile of hook-like elements on one material, and loop or other hook-engageable elements of pile on the other interengageable material.
The securement of such strips to spherical ball surfaces has involved the problem of a marked tendency to become disengaged from repeated impact, bouncing, and handling. This is particularly true with respect to the inside edges of curved portions of such strips on which inside edges or edge portions tend to bunch, fold, or bend up, and become detached, largely because of the lesser distance the inside edge extends in comparison with the distance the outside edge of a curved portion extends. The process of separation or peeling off accelerates and spreads, once started. Partial or extensive disengagement of a strip renders the strip much less effective in engaging a fabric surface onto which the ball is tossed. Such disengagement or peeling-off interferes with the aerodynamic behavior of a ball being tossed, resulting in inaccurate and undesired trajectories of such balls.
Various approaches have been taken in efforts to solve such problems. U.S. Pat. No. 4,053,156 relates to an arrangement wherein the ends of Velcro-type strips are anchored in depressions on a ball by separate plug members frictionally retained by bushings. The ball structure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,316 involves two rim components about a ball and intersecting at right angles, with flat tread surfaces covered with tapes having interengageable material on non-stretchable backing. U.S. Pat. No. 4,415,154 shows a ball with strip material wound thereon.